Daniel looked carefully at the cityscape he was falling into. The green and brown spires were made of an unknown material, and each spire had many holes in them. He could see black dots coming in and out of them, and as he fell closer, he saw that the dots were actually alien insects that looked very similar to the creature. Perhaps it had dreamt up other members of its species.

  The spires and skyscrapers loomed larger as he got closer to the ground. Much larger than he expected. A familiar office building looked three times as large as Daniel remembered as he hurtled towards it. He looked at his reflection in the windows as he passed, and the oversized glass panes made him feel rather small indeed. Not that he could worry about that right now.

  “Hey Penelope, how do I land?” Daniel asked.

  “What? Uh...” She replied, flustered.

  He could see the treetops and powerlines in greater and greater detail. If he didn’t stop soon, he was on a one-way collision course with the pavement.

  “Close your eyes and think of flying!” Penelope yelled.

  His eyes closed and he conjured up every thought he could think that had to do with flight. Daniel’s body tensed up in anticipation of an impact, but it never came. Daniel tentatively opened his eyes and found himself hovering a few feet off the ground.

  “Oh.”

  Daniel thought about going down to the ground, and then he slowly descended, all the while hearing buzzing coming from his back. On touching the pavement with his feet, he sighed in relief. He looked around at his surroundings, taking in the strange landscape. It was a bizarre mix of modern earth environments, fused with an unknown alien world. Concrete sidewalks melded into uncanny forest paths, and small buildings merged with odd rock formations. The recognizable parts only made things all the stranger.

  “Where are we?” He asked after a while.

  “We’re inside that thing... we’re in its dream.” Penelope replied. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s combining its experiences on earth with what it saw on its home planet.”

  “Well, that sounds about right.” He couldn’t really say otherwise. “But what do we do now?”

  “You should find that bug first. We need to get out of here, and for that, it needs to wake up.”

  Glancing at his back, Daniel caught a glimpse of the wings that helped him to land. It was a rather familiar pair of translucent dragonfly wings, as if lifted off the back of the creature itself. With a brief thought they lifted him gently into the air, and with another, he began moving up.

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  He wanted to get up to a higher vantage point, but his flight path took him close to a telephone pole. As he approached it, he got an idea of just how large it was. It just kept growing and growing, like an optical illusion. At this size, it was more like a radio tower. He drifted upwards towards the powerlines, and as he passed one, he gingerly reached out to touch it. He was expecting a jolt, a powerful surge of electricity, but he felt nothing. It didn’t feel like a metal wire either, it was closer to the clothesline in his apartment.

  “A dream is made up of your personal experiences,” Penelope explained, noticing his confusion. “It’s definitely seen power lines before, but I guess it never went up to touch them.”

  “Oh, ok.” That made a lot of sense. “But don’t birds land on power lines all the time? Why don’t they get shocked?”

  “...How am I supposed to know?”

  He was past the powerlines soon enough, and he rose towards the skyline of the city(?). Strangely, inside the strange mix of environments, there was nothing moving besides the alien bugs and himself. The insects were varied and seemed to have different roles. Some were closer to the creature’s old form, a flat cockroach-like body suitable for moving quickly on the ground. Others were dainty fliers with thin torsos and gossamer wings. Unfortunately, Daniel couldn’t find any other pattern to them or their behaviour. Interesting as they were, they weren’t bringing him any closer to the creature.

  “Hey, any idea where I should be going?” Daniel asked Penelope.

  “...That thing lives with you, right? Can you see any familiar buildings?”

  They were all familiar, which was part of the problem. It was clear that the creature had recreated the buildings near his apartment, along with the ones found on their walking routes. All the urban environments felt familiar to him. Speaking of his apartment, though, where was it? Looking into the horizon he could see the same buildings repeating after a while, but not a single one was his familiar home.

  After letting his gaze wander along the skyline, Daniel found something. Close to the center of the city was another brown spire. It wasn’t particularly tall, but while the other spires were shaped like cones, this one was more like an obelisk. A strange sense of familiarity had Daniel taking a second look at it. The spire had ridges at regular intervals, but he could swear the top of those ridges were lined with railings. And the holes in the spire were significantly larger than that of other spires – the ‘holes’ were rather rectangular in nature to boot.

  “This is my apartment!” Daniel said in realization.

  “What? Are you sure?” Penelope asked incredulously.

  “Positive.”

  Daniel drifted down to the 25th floor. Counting the floors from above was a little difficult, but once he found the right one, he found his apartment without trouble. Although everything was larger than it should be, and it was all made of that green-brown material, the walk down the hall was eerily familiar to him. Hovering above the door, he couldn’t help but be a little nervous about what was behind it. He had no idea how the creature really saw its home. Of course, there wasn’t an actual door in front of him – only a very large, flat piece of cardboard that didn’t completely cover the top and bottom.

  It didn’t need to copy that too, Daniel thought, but the absurd sight helped him calm down somewhat. Setting his flew above the cardboard barrier, entering the apartment... and he was completely flabbergasted by what he saw.